Video conferencing in Teaching Cross-cultural Competences

International communication in business requires adequate skills in English. For this purpose, the global community requires a working force who can not only use the English language for reception of information but also for oral and written production. It is thus vital for educational institutions to prepare students efficiently and possibly more than ever, for fast and reliable oral communication with the help of Skype or video conferences. At the same time the curricula of higher education are filled with what the students need in many other respects to be able to succeed in their future career. Studies of language can therefore be challenged by other courses and activities, all necessary to have at hand in a more complex and demanding working environment. Motivation is central in students’ learning and therefore it is crucial to create conditions for learning languages that students experience as both relevant and authentic-like.

In 2014 some 120 students at Pardubice University and Uppsala University, Campus Gotland worked together in communication in English by using video conferences. In these video conferencing seminars the students’ oral skills were in focus. The Czech and Swedish students were of different faculties/disciplines but mostly in the first or second year of their studies. The purpose was to highlight issues of international business and intercultural communication and in this way develop the students’ language competence in authentic communication and interaction between non-native speakers of English. The authors will discuss some e-instruments (Moodle, Facebook groups, shared Google docs and presentations, Google drive) used in VC seminars for improving effective language learning and for achieving desired progress in the students’ communicative and cross-cultural competences. The instruments discussed are related to raising the students’ learner autonomy through video conferencing techniques in the everyday learning-teaching process. The experience of the students also reflects the intercultural challenges seen through the students’ different approaches towards both set and selected topics for VC sessions and focuses on the shift from the teacher-centred to a more learner-centred approach. The seminars were evaluated both in terms of questionnaires and with discussions in groups.